Windmills

[JJT]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Is that a fact that those big windmills shred birds. They turn rather slowly and the birds can surley see them. Urban myth or not? )</font>

Urban legend. I've done a ton of research into wind energy and have toured 3 wind farms, (even got to climb a 240' tower). The average bird kill is 2 birds/turbine/year. An outdoor cat can do that in a day.... I get at least 2 dead birds a year from them flying into my windows at the house.

 

[pilonidal]

Saw some sites also that say cars, homes, powerlines, etc all more hazardous than the windmills.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'll try not to get too politcal here, but the envirnomentalists in California are about as wacky as they come.

When the windmill farm that Calironia and I mentioned earlier was first built, the environmentalist groups, inclduding what I consider the worse, the Sierra Club, sued everyone involved saying the vibrations of the windmills affected the reproductive frequency of the ground squirels. They were not haveing sex as much with the result of less babbies being born. This resulted in less food for the Hawks and Eagles.

Several studies were conducted and the findings were that all populations were at higher numbers than before and that the ground squirels were in fact doing very well sexually.

The cases were dismissed.

A few years later, led by the Sierra Club, filed a new lawsuit claiming the windmills were killing birds as they flew by and were struck by the blades. They had a picture of a dead golden eagle in the news as proof.

But when a group of college kids from US Davis did a field count on the number of dead birds found in the area, they couldn't find a single one that was caused by the windmill blades. Not one.

The case was dismissed again, but that's about the same time the owners of the windmill farm also filed bankrupcy.

The media only tells the part of the story when the lawsuite is filed. Only when you fight the environmental groups in court do you learn of how often they file these things and they get thrown out of court.

Eddie